Incomparable Values

Download or read book Incomparable Values written by John Nolt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People tend to rank values of all kinds linearly from good to bad, but there is little reason to think that this is reasonable or correct. This book argues, to the contrary, that values are often partially ordered and hence frequently incomparable. Proceeding logically from a small set of axioms, John Nolt examines the great variety of partially ordered value structures, exposing fallacies that arise from overlooking them. He reveals various ways in which incomparability is obscured: using linear indices to summarize partially ordered data, relying on an inadequately defined concept of parity, or conflating incomparability with vagueness. Incomparability can enrich and clarify a range of topics including the paradoxes of Derek Parfit, rational decision theory, and the infinite values of theology. Finally, Nolt shows how to generalize many of the concepts introduced earlier, explores the intricate depths of certain noteworthy partially ordered value structures, and argues for the finitude of value. Incomparable Values will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in ethics, value theory, rational decision theory, and logic.

Download or read book Making Comparisons Count written by Ruth Chang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book attempts to answer two questions: Are alternatives for choice ever incomparable? and In what ways can items be compared? The arguments offered suggest that alternatives for choice no matter how different are never incomparable, and that the ways in which items can be compared are richer and more varied than commonly supposed.

Download or read book Environmental Ethics for the Long Term written by John Nolt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Broad in scope, this introduction to environmental ethics considers both contemporary issues and the extent of humanity’s responsibility for distant future life. John Nolt, a logician and environmental ethicist, interweaves contemporary science, logical analysis, and ethical theory into the story of the expansion of ethics beyond the human species and into the far future. Informed by contemporary environmental science, the book deduces concrete policy recommendations from carefully justified ethical principles and ends with speculations concerning the deepest problems of environmental ethics. Pedagogical features include chapter outlines, annotated suggestions for further readings, the explanations of key terms when first mentioned, and an extensive glossary.

Download or read book Ethics at 3:AM written by Richard Marshall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 3AM magazine follows up their 2014 publication Philosophy at 3AM: Questions and Answers with a new collection interviews, this time focused on ethics. Interviewer Richard Marhsall presents 26 interviews, balanced both in terms of specialty, gender, and seniority, so that the result is a balanced and engaging portrait of the state of the art in ethics today

Download or read book Moral Strata written by John R. Welch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume recreates the received notion of reflective equilibrium. It reconfigures reflective equilibrium as both a cognitive ideal and a method for approximating this ideal. The ideal of reflective equilibrium is restructured using the concept of discursive strata, which are formed by sentences and differentiated by function. Sentences that perform the same kind of linguistic function constitute a stratum. The book shows how moral discourse can be analyzed into phenomenal, instrumental, and teleological strata, and the ideal of reflective equilibrium reworked in these terms. In addition, the work strengthens the method of reflective equilibrium by harnessing the resources of decision theory and inductive logic. It launches a comparative version of decision theory and employs this framework as a guide to moral theory choice. It also recruits quantitative inductive logic to inform a standard of inductive cogency. When used in tandem with comparative decision theory, this standard can aid in the effort to turn the undesirable condition of reflective disequilibrium into reflective equilibrium.

Download or read book Partially Ordered Groups written by Andrew Martin William Glass and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1999 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author's style of writing is very lucid, and the material presented is self-contained. It is an excellent reference text for a graduate course in this area, as well as a source of material for individual reading".Bulletin of London Mathematical Society

Download or read book Principles of Security and Trust written by Riccardo Focardi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Principles of Security and Trust, POST 2015, held as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2015, in London, UK, in April 2015. The 17 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. In addition, one invited talk is included. The papers have been organized in topical sections on information flow and security types, risk assessment and security policies, protocols, hardware and physical security and privacy and voting.